


The Song in the Stars

by Emmeth_Nigh



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Family, Redemption, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-10-05 08:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20486081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmeth_Nigh/pseuds/Emmeth_Nigh
Summary: As the Resistance fades and the First Order grows in strength, the Light allies itself with the Darkness. With traitors at their backs and an ancient evil shadowing their steps, each must decide how far they will go for power and whether it is worth the cost. Only from those decisions, some small and some galaxy changing, can the song of the Force be woven.





	1. Chapter 1: Rey

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everybody!  
So this is my first fic on AO3, though it's also posted on Fanfic. It started off inspired by a Youtube video called "Rey and the Sad Devolution of the Female Character" as well as a song called "A Million Lights" by Michael W. Smith. Well, the idea would NOT leave me alone, so here we are.  
Probably should mention that I am borrowing heavily from both the films and the novels of the expanded universe for this story. I own nothing.  
I did change a few aspects of the characters and the Force to suit my purposes (also because canon irritated me) as well as for the possibility of character growth. I also messed with ages of characters a bit. Wanted to send a huge shout out to my beta Leona2016 who's been helping me iron this story out- you all should go check out some of her stuff- as well as another writer called FenrisInside who's been helping me from the beginning. You guys both rock  
I hope you all enjoy the story!

Rey was in trouble, and she knew it. The agony of minutes before had disappeared as soon as Snoke gasped out his last breath, but it had quickly been replaced by raw terror. Snoke’s guards advanced on her, weapons hissing into life. She backed up, lightsaber at the ready, already stretching herself out to reach the Force as Luke taught her.

Behind her, Kylo Ren’s saber crackled and spit sparks, spreading an eerie red light through the chamber. She could sense the dark side already humming around him as he used his anger to pull on the Force. Rey followed his example, reaching out with her mind. The Force came as she called, running through her and flowing from her. She was submerged in it, was breathing it in and exhaling it.

  
Her eyes, closed for just that moment, snapped open only barely in time to see the attack coming in from her left. She staggered under the weight of the blow, but managed to stop it with her saber and slip out from under the guard. The weapon in her hands was awkward and unwieldy, unfamiliar with it as she was, but she managed to deflect another blow and decapitate a soldier with the back cut.

  
“I wish I had my staff,” she growled as a guard’s chain whip wrapped around her saber.

  
She could almost imagine the grimacing face behind the awful red helmet. The guard began to pull in the chain, wrapping it around an arm as he dragged her closer and closer. She fought him every step of the way, but before she could get free, he had her by the throat and the pointed end of that infernal whip was less than an inch from her skin.

As she gasped for air Rey called on the Force, pushing against the arm holding the weapon. Even as she focused, she sensed another presence coming up behind her.  
Another guard. The Force told her.

  
Her vision began to go spotty and her head spun. The glow of the saber filled her eyes with blue light. She had to get free. Allowing her mind to release everything else, she cast about her, searching for the bond that still ran from her to Kylo Ren. The moment she sensed its music, she let her mind run along the path toward his.

  
_Ben!_ she called out with her thoughts. _Help me!_

  
The effect was almost immediate. Tendrils of blue lightning branched across the room, almost blinding her as they reached to touch her captor. She felt the tingle in her skin just before the bolt of electricity struck and sent up a shield around herself. The guard lost his grip on her throat and collapsed to the floor. She didn’t hesitate. With a quick thrust, she finished the job and spun to meet her new attacker. To her surprise, she found the other guard laid out flat on the floor. She thrust her saber deep into his chest and looked around for Kylo Ren.

  
She sensed his fury before she laid eyes on him. He stood fast on Snoke’s dais, battling five guards at once. The emotion ran so strong in him that the thrum of the darkness filled the room and engulfed every other sound.

  
_Be careful Ben,_ she whispered in her mind.

  
But before she fully formed her thought, she was already running for the fight with her mouth stretched wide in a battle cry. She gave up trying to remember the strokes Luke had taught her and struck out wildly with her saber. One of the guards fell, legs cut from beneath him after a cut that Rey figured had been guided by blind luck. Kylo Ren hardly glanced her way. His lightsaber spat fire in the half-light, holding back two guards with pikes. He was in a deadlock and Rey watched as another guard darted in to finish him.

  
“Oh no you don’t,” she said, brandishing her saber and dashing up the stairs behind the man.

  
Rey had just raised her arm to strike when a blow knocked her to the floor. She scrambled back to her feet as quickly as she went down, but as soon as she did she realized that she’d lost hold of her lightsaber.

  
Rey swore under her breath, backing away from the guard that had kicked her. The man held two blades and slashed at her neck, trying to get in a cut. Rey thrust out an arm, searching the area for the familiar feel of the Kyber crystal in her saber. To her dismay, she couldn’t sense its unique signature.

  
She was brought painfully back into awareness as one of the blades caught her shoulder and sliced deep. Rey yelped and stumbled backward, clutching at the wound. The guard didn’t relent, seeming to gain resolve as Rey’s faltered. Left with no other options, she flung out her arms before her and pushed with the Force. The guard went down hard, and one of his knives skittered across the floor until it was out of his reach.

  
Rey saw her chance. She stretched out her arm and called to the Force again. The knife flew across the room and nestled against her palm. She stared at it for a moment, trying to figure out how a dagger was going to do her any good if she wasn’t even able to properly use a saber.

  
Before she could arrange her fingers around the hilt, the guard was on top of her. The knife flashed toward her stomach. Desperate, she leaped backwards out of reach of the blade. She slashed at the extended arm, but her blade glanced off, squealing against the blood-red armor. She ducked a half-second before the knife rushed over her head.  
The guard pushed her backwards, slashing at her face and chest. Rey cried out as a stroke landed, arching across her torso. She shoved the man away again and flung a hand out at her side, looking for her lightsaber. The familiar musical hum of the crystal at its center met her ears and she reached out to it with the Force.

  
The guard was up again and his arm came down as her weapon reached her open hand. In the space of a breath, she ignited the blade and swung. A startled howl from the guard told her she’d struck true. Armor clattered on the floor as the man’s arm fell, limp and useless, to the ground with the knife still clutched in its fingers. Rey didn’t hesitate. She leveled the saber at the guard’s neck and swung. The blade hissed as it met flesh and the man sank to the floor and lay still. She turned just in time to see Kylo Ren throw off the last of the guards and kill him with a single thrust of his lightsaber. All was suddenly still around them.

  
They stood staring at each other, panting and shaking from exertion. The dark side still buzzed in Rey’s ears as it wrapped around Kylo, but all else was silent. Gradually, even the music of his anger faded and they were left alone in the awful stillness of the chamber.

  
Rey gazed around her at the smoldering ruin that had once been Snoke’s throne room. Bodies were scattered about and even the Supreme Leader himself lay bisected at the foot of his great chair. It took her mind a minute to comprehend what that meant. Kylo Ren walked to the top of the dais and stood, looking down at the body.

  
“He’s dead,” he murmured, nudging the body with his booted foot. “The Apprentice has killed the Master, as the Sith did for generations.”

  
Rey got a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach, but the memory of the Resistance fleet came back to her and overshadowed it. Snoke had showed her the beginning of its destruction. Was it completely gone by now? She ran to the observation window and gasped. There were still some transports left.

  
“The fleet, Ben,” she said. “Snoke’s gone. There’s still time to save them. Your mother lives- I can still hear her song.”

  
Kylo turned to look at her and his eyes held a look of sudden surety. He shook his head and wiped away a trickle of blood that ran from his nose, standing a little taller. His voice became more resolute.

  
“It’s time to let old things die, Rey,” he said. “It’s time to cut ties. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the Resistance: we have to let it all die away.”

  
Rey stared at him, uncomprehending.

  
“What do you mean?” she asked, tears of disappointment and anger beginning to sting her eyes. “Don’t you want to come back? Don’t you want to be free?”

  
Kylo shook his head again and extended a hand to her.  
“I want you to join me," he said. "We could rule together. You could be by my side and I would train you. We would bring a new order to the galaxy.”

  
Rey bit her lip and looked over her shoulder out the window. Another transport ship exploded. She quickly turned to the Force and listened. Leia’s song was still there. Poe’s still rang through the stars. Finn’s song had grown stronger since she’d last sensed him. All of them still lived.

  
“Rey,” came Kylo’s voice from behind her, “you’re still holding on. You have to let go.”

  
“I can’t just let them die,” she said as she turned to face him with tears beginning to run down her cheeks. “They’re my family.”

  
“Join me, Rey,” Kylo repeated. “We can be family to one another.”

  
Rey just stared at him.

  
“You killed your father,” she said at last, her voice trembling. “You would kill your mother without a second thought. I wouldn’t want to be your family.”

  
A muscle in Kylo’s cheek twitched as surprise flickered on his face. Rey sensed frustration rising in him.

  
“If you aren’t willing to rule at my side, then at least join me as my apprentice. Allow me to teach you what I know of the Force.”

  
Rey glanced at him to see if he were serious. She had to admit the offer was tempting. Her eyes drifted to the five guards he had bested. She remembered the lightning he’d cast and a sudden desire for the same strength rose in her. Luke taught her next to nothing. Now here was Kylo Ren, offering to teach her anything she wanted to know.  
His voice echoed in her mind, bringing back memories of their last connection. When she’d clasped his hand, she’d sensed a power like electric running through her fingers. It pulled at her even now.

  
_Please, Rey,_ said Kylo in her mind. _Please._

  
The thought of her friends held her back. What would they think if they knew she was considering allying herself with Kylo Ren. Would it not be the greatest betrayal since Ben Solo turned to the dark side? But what could she do for her friends now anyway? She was trapped on an enemy ship and she had no way to save them. She was still untrained in the Force and she had failed to bring Kylo Ren back to the light. With the power he offered, maybe she would not fail to defeat him. If she could not save her friends, maybe she could at least avenge them.

  
“You will teach me everything?”

  
“Everything.”

  
“You won’t hide things from me, as Luke did?”

  
“Nothing.”

  
“Swear it,” she said.

  
“I swear I will withhold nothing from you that is in my power to give.”

  
Rey watched him with the eyes of a hunted animal. The music of the Force seemed shrill in her ears, yet it pulled at her to accept his offer. She raised her arm, as she had done that night on Ahch-To when the vast distance that separated them had been peeled back and she had seen him face to face. Kylo mirrored the gesture. They stood, almost touching for a long second before Rey finally dropped her hand and her eyes. She wasn’t even able to look him in the face as she uttered the most treasonous words that had ever crossed her lips.

  
“Alright, Kylo,” she said. “I’ll join you.”

  
As though it heard and rejected what she had to say, the world rocked violently under them. Rey was thrown to the floor. Her head cracked hard against the tile, sending sparks through her vision. Noises faded and darkness edged in from the corners of her vision. She didn’t try to fight it. The black waters closed in over her and she sank into them willingly.


	2. Chapter 2: Rey

“Wake up, Rey.” 

Someone was calling her and shaking her shoulders. She cracked an eye. Kylo Ren’s face filled her vision, his dark eyes fierce and sharp. She closed her eyes, not ready to wake and face her promise.

“Come on,” Kylo growled, giving her another jostle. “Wake up.” 

She opened her eyes again to meet his. Alarms blared around them, red lights flashing and an automated voice warning of a hull breach. Blood oozed as the cuts across her stomach and shoulder opened. She couldn’t make sense of any of it. Her head ached and she started to fade again, too tired to think. Kylo let out a frustrated breath through clenched teeth and she felt his fingers on her forehead.

“Wake up Rey,” he commanded. 

Her mind surged to life as she felt the tug of the Force. She jerked upright, boots scrabbling against the floor to gain purchase on the slippery surface. She wasn’t sure if it was her head or something else, but the floor seemed to tilt beneath her.

“What’s going on?” she asked. 

“The Raddus just jumped to lightspeed.”

“What does that have to do with-“

“From less than 100 klicks out,” he said, face set. 

“What?” Rey breathed. 

She couldn’t be hearing right. To jump to lightspeed in such close proximity would be a-

“A suicide mission,” Kylo said, finishing her thought for her. “Nevertheless, it was effective.”

The floor angled down a fraction more and Rey stumbled backwards. 

“Let’s go,” Kylo said, taking her hand. “We have to get to my fighter.”

Rey yanked her arm out of his grasp.

“I can get there without you holding onto me,” she said. 

Kylo blinked in surprise, then shrugged.

“Keep up then,” he said.

He started for the door, his long stride cutting through the distance. Rey had to trot to keep up. Her lightsaber thumped against her leg, keeping time with the pulse of the Force around her. Music rang through her mind, a background hum as she jogged through the bright corridors behind Kylo. 

Alarms wailed from everywhere at once, deafening her ears. The floor tilted further under her feet and she fell hard against a wall. The wounds in her shoulder and stomach opened further and began to burn. A warm trickle of blood ran down her arm. She grimaced and clapped a hand over the bleeding, wincing as her finger brushed against the open edge of the cut. 

“How far is the hangar bay?” she asked.

“Only a few levels down.”

“That close?”

The ship lurched beneath them and Kylo lengthened his stride.

“It may be far enough to get us both killed,” he said. 

They came to a lift and Kylo slapped at the call button. The doors hissed open and they both scrambled in just as a groan echoed through the ship.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Sounded like something bending that shouldn’t.”

The doors snapped shut and the lift descended. Rey took the opportunity to catch her breath. The wound in her stomach burned every time she breathed too deeply, but she pushed aside the discomfort. Kylo looked like a caged narglatch pacing back and forth in front of the door. He threw an occasional glance over his shoulder at her, almost as if he was making sure she hadn’t vanished into thin air.

The lift shuddered under their feet and Rey pushed herself into a corner, grasping at the smooth wall in an attempt to stay on her feet. Kylo staggered before righting himself in time for the doors to open. He swept out of the lift, heading straight for a black TIE fighter on the other side of the hangar bay. Rey peered out the door, the instinct to hide while on a First Order ship still strong. 

Stormtroopers ran everywhere, the red flashing lights reflecting on their suits. Rey jumped backward out of sight. She took a deep breath, to calm her mind, and drew on the Force. The comfort of the high music of the light side wrapped around her like a blanket and she stepped out into the open, reaching out to turn curious minds from her presence.

_Don’t notice me,_ she thought. _I’m nobody._

To her surprise, heads turned away as she darted after Kylo. No one stopped her. No one so much as glanced in her direction. She sighed in relief as she ducked under the TIE fighter and dropped her hold on the Force. As she glanced around, she realized Kylo had disappeared. 

“Kylo?” she called in her mind, too afraid to say anything aloud.

“Up here,” came the reply from above her.

A black gloved hand reached down between the cabin and the wings. She peered up through the fighter to meet Kylo’s anxious gaze.

“Grab hold,” he said. “I’ll pull you up.”

Rey shied away from the proffered hand and scrambled up on her own, gritting her teeth against the pain in her shoulder. Kylo opened an access hatch in the top of the ship and swung inside. Rey dropped in behind him, more than happy to disappear from the view of anyone who happened to glance at the fighter. She hissed at the stabbing pain in her stomach as her boots hit the floor of the cabin.

“Blast it to blazes,” she gasped, pressing her hand tight against the cut.

Kylo was already in the pilot’s seat, flicking switches and gearing up the engines.

“You’re going to want to hold onto something,” he said.

Rey looked around before latching on to a thick cable running along the wall. She was only just in time. The ship lurched and rose several meters as Kylo pulled on the controls. Rey’s shoulder bumped the wall and she let out a low curse. 

Kylo jammed the controls forward and the ship shot over the heads of the stormtroopers and out into space. Rey rocked on her feet, struggling to keep her balance as the ship darted around other fleeing vessels. Kylo sat with his eyes glued to the viewport, deftly maneuvering to avoid floating debris. 

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“The Ileenium system,” he said, never taking his eyes off the glass. “There’s a battlecruiser patrolling in the region. It’s where we were to go if something like this ever happened.”

“You had a plan for this?” Rey asked, incredulous.

“Snoke had a plan for everything,” Kylo said. “Even you, if he could have turned you.”

Rey couldn’t help shuddering.

“What would he have done to me?”

Kylo’s shoulders went stiff and she saw his pulse throbbing in his throat.

“You don’t want to know that,” he said.

She tried to probe at his mind but hit a wall before she got even close. The only thing she could sense was the high whine she’d come to recognize as anxiety.

“Kylo?”

“Don’t,” he said. “I won’t answer that question.”

The irritation she tried to push down rose like a storm in her chest.

“You swore you wouldn’t hide things from me.”

Kylo shook his head.

“I swore I wouldn’t hide things about the Force from you. This isn’t about the Force.”

“Then what is it about?”

Kylo set his jaw and didn’t answer. Rey turned her eyes from him and looked through the viewport out into endless space, cold anger swirling through her.

“You’re not protecting me by hiding things, you know,” she said. “Luke seemed to think that’s what he was doing by keeping secrets, and you see how well that turned out.” 

Kylo’s knuckles went white on the controls and the cords stood out in his neck.

“Fine,” he snapped. “You want to know what would have happened?”

Rey nodded.

“Snoke would have tortured you within an inch of your life and your sanity,” he said. “He would have broken you down until you were rubble and then rebuilt you into something he had use for. If he couldn’t do that, he would have killed you. The pain you felt when he forced himself into your mind was nothing. You would have begged for the relief of it by the end.”

Rey stared at him. Though he never took his eyes from the glass before him, his hands shook on the controls and sweat ran down his temple. She felt the horror of what he’d said begin to make an impression.

She gripped the cable above her until her fingers blanched, forcing herself to remember that Snoke was dead. She was safe now, or as safe as she could be with a person like Kylo Ren. Anger and fear still curled around him, making her twitchy and nervous as it worked into her own mind from his. Without warning, images flickered through her thoughts. She saw Snoke and arcs of blue lightning flashing again and again. Her nose burned with the smell of electricity and the acrid scent of blood. The last to pass her mind’s eye was an image of Snoke’s corpse, halved and lying prone on the cold floor. 

As suddenly as the images came, they disappeared. Kylo shivered and blinked rapidly, shaking his head as though he was casting away his thoughts. Rey hesitated for a moment, poised to speak. She had the distinct impression what she had seen hadn’t been meant for her, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Kylo?” she asked, her questions on the edge of her tongue.

His eyes went stone hard, as they had on the cliff on Ahch-To.

“Let the past die, Rey,” he said, an echo of his words that night. “Kill it if you have to.”

She shut her mouth with a snap and tried to forget the foreign images she’d been given. To distract herself from them, she watched over Kylo’s shoulder as he worked the controls, absorbing the way each affected the craft. She couldn’t help admiring the elegance and speed of the fighter. For all the wrongs they committed, the First Order certainly commissioned some beautiful ships.

“Hold tight.”

“What?” she asked, coming back to reality.

“I said hold tight,” Kylo said. “I’m about to make the jump.”

Rey watched through the viewport as the white points of starlight stretched into lines as the ship hit light speed. The strange, eerily beautiful music of hyperspace swirled about her and she closed her eyes to listen. Her fear ebbed as the peace of the Force stole over her. 

“What are you doing?” 

Kylo’s voice broke into her thoughts and drew her away from the peace.

“Just listening.”

“To what?” he asked.

“Everything,” she said, vaguely waving a hand around her.

Kylo’s brow knit as he considered her.

“It seemed like you were getting further away.”

Rey shrugged, not sure what to make of his words. She could still hear the darkness humming around him no matter how deep in the Force she went. His presence always seemed to be close in her mind, just outside the wall that she’d constructed between them.

“How long until we reach this cruiser?” she asked.

“It’s called the Finalizer,” he said. “And half an hour, maybe less.”

Rey let go of the cable and sat down, folding her legs beneath her. The wounds in her shoulder and stomach sent up complaints that she did her best to ignore. She’d had worse before. In time, they would heal. 

Kylo’s hands left the controls and he rubbed his face, letting out a long sigh. His tired eyes found the window again and he sat, staring at the brilliant lights streaking by the glass. Rey studied his drawn features as the starlight flickered over them. Something in her heart that she’d forgotten since her last night on Ahch-To stirred again. She felt pity for the creature before her. He ceased to be a monster in her eyes, shifting into the man he had been long ago- into the man he could perhaps become again.

His dark eyes turned on her and she shifted her gaze away to fix on a metal grate in the wall across from her. She pulled her knees to her chest, making herself as small as possible, and tried not to think of his eyes on her. Her mind drifted back to her friends and she reached out to them. Their songs still rang strong through the Force. She let out a long, slow breath of relief. 

Something beeped from the control panel and she flinched.

“We’re nearly there,” said Kylo, throwing switches.

A second later, the TIE fighter dropped out of hyperspace and Rey saw the smooth curve of D’Qar in the distance. It was strange to see a planet ringed by stone, and she stared out the window as they flew towards it.

Kylo clicked the button of a commlink.

“Finalizer, this is the Silencer. Requesting coordinates.”

There was a rush of static and then a voice rattling off a set of numbers. Kylo’s fingers darted over a keyboard, plugging them into the navigator. 

“ETA five minutes.”

“Where is it?” Rey asked, craning her neck to find the battlecruiser.

“In the debris field,” said Kylo.

He gestured at the ring of rock. Rey squinted, but couldn’t make out anything among the clustered stone, so she tried listening. Sure enough, as soon as she touched the Force, she heard hundreds and thousands of songs spring into existence. She tilted her head back and forth, homing in on the direction of the sounds.

“It’s over there, isn’t it?” she asked, pointing into the distance.

Kylo glanced at her, seemingly surprised.

“Yes, it is.”

Rey stood next to Kylo’s chair, watching as he maneuvered his fighter around chunks of rock three times the size of the TIE. An unexpected excitement rose in her as they wove through the asteroid belt in a complex dance. She wished her own hands could be on the controls, piloting the craft as Kylo was. She itched to fly a ship again. 

The cruiser loomed over them, throwing a shadow across the viewport. Rey could see the hangar bay doors open wide and dozens of other ships darting through. Kylo pressed the button on his comm.

“Finalizer, this is the Silencer. Are we clear for final approach?”

“You’re clear Silencer,” came the response.

“Be advised Finalizer, I have a guest aboard.”

“A…guest, sir?” came the voice after a pause of several seconds.

“You question me trooper?”

“No sir,” came the immediate response.

“Good,” said Kylo. “I want apartments ready for her on the officers’ deck.”

“Her?” 

Rey heard the incredulity in the voice even through the burst of static. She scowled at the commlink.

“Do you have something to say about it, trooper?” Kylo growled into the comm. 

“No sir,” said the disembodied voice. “Sorry sir.”

“What sector am I landing in?”

There was a silence for a moment.

“Sector Y7. It’s clear and you’re good to go sir.”

Kylo switched off the commlink and made a face out the viewport.

“Pack of useless, brain-bolted greenies,” he grumbled. 

Rey almost smiled at the all-powerful First Order’s personnel difficulties, but her amusement faded as they swept into the hangar bay of the Finalizer. Somehow, arriving on a First Order ship with Kylo Ren made her promise to be his apprentice real. It had been words before, now she was living it. Now she was tangled in it. The thought of escape flashed across her thoughts. She could steal a ship and go back to Crait. She could go back to her friends where she would be safe.

She watched Kylo out of the corner of her eyes, but he was concentrating on his landing. Her hand went to the saber at her belt. She could kill him now. She could be free of her promise forever and she could free the galaxy from a tyrant. It would be a quick stroke and then it would be over. She tried to imagine killing him in cold blood. Tried to imagine driving her lightsaber through his dark heart. 

The memory of his exhausted face filled her thoughts. He had been so unbearably human in that moment, so like herself, that she had forgotten the monster that killed his father. Her fingers slipped from the hilt of her saber. She couldn’t kill him. Perhaps in the heat of a battle she could have, but not unaware and unchallenged. 

The Force sang in her ears, tugging her. As the Silencer settled gently on the landing deck, Rey made her decision. She would stay and learn the ways of the Force. She knew little of it and it was already determining her steps, so she had little choice but to follow.

What else could she do but learn to trust.


	3. Chapter 3: Rey

“I need to find Hux,” muttered Kylo as he pushed open the hatch above them and climbed out. 

Rey was right behind him, pulling herself up into the open with her teeth clenched so tight against pain that they creaked. The more she moved, the more she wished she could use a mind trick to make herself forget the wounds. Kylo walked to the edge of the wing, balanced there for a second, and then jumped to the ground. Rey grimaced, knowing she’d have to do the same and dreading the knife it was going to send through her stomach. She hesitated for a second before jumping. 

It hurt every bit as much as she was expecting. She crumpled, her arm tucked close against her stomach. Kylo heard her gasp and turned to look over his shoulder. She struggled to her feet as quickly as she could and whipped her hand away from her wound, hiding it in the loose folds of her tunic. Kylo narrowed his eyes and stalked toward her. His hand snatched at her wrist and pulled her arm up to look at it. Rey fought to hold herself still and not wrench her hand away.

“Blood?” he asked.

“Yes,” she ground out through her teeth. “Now, let go of me.”

His fingers released as if she’d burnt him and he took a step back, crossing his arms. Rey slipped past him, making for a corridor across the hangar bay. She made it only a few steps down the blinding white hall before she felt his fingers on her arm, gripping it tight and turning her to face him. She twisted from his grasp and stared him down.

“What?” she spat.

“Where were you injured?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rey said, lifting her chin.

The last thing she wanted was for him to find a weakness. She pulled on the Force, listening as the pitch increased until it nearly vibrated the air around her. She bent the Force toward his mind, willing him to think it didn’t matter. Willing him to forget what he’d seen.

“I’m fine,” she said.

Kylo didn’t look convinced. She heard a low song starting under her own. It rose and fell in pitch, almost as if it were testing the limits of her manipulation. There was a brief moment of dissonance and then an absolute silence that fell between them in the Force.

“Don’t try mind tricks on me Rey,” Kylo said. “They don’t work.”

She glared at him.

“I’m fine,” she said, pushing back against his mind with the Force, struggling to hear her song again.

She didn’t have to listen for Kylo’s emotions to tell he was frustrated.

“You don’t have the strength yet, so don’t bother wearing yourself out,” he said. “It’s not going to work.”

“Tell that to the stormtroopers that let me out of my cell.”

“And just how Force-sensitive do you think they were?”

Rey thought back. She hadn’t heard much when she’d listened for their music. Somehow, that was what had pushed her to use the Force. 

“Not very,” she muttered.

“Exactly,” he said. “So answer me: where are you hurt?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because you’re my apprentice now. It’s my job, like it or not, to make sure you’re ready to fight.”

“I’ve taken care of myself for as long as I can remember,” she hissed. “I don’t need your help.”

“Yes, you do.”

She reached out for the Force again and flinched as it tightened around her. Instead of the comfortable warmth of the Light, this was an unfamiliar, freezing darkness. The music around her was so low she could scarcely hear it. It was as if her anger had come alive and surrounded her. She gasped and dropped her hold on the Force. Kylo raised an eyebrow.

“It feels different than the Light, doesn’t it?” he asked. 

She nodded, a black fear squeezing her heart. The dark side had come so easily.

“Snoke didn’t believe it,” Kylo said with a wry smile. “Not like I did.”

Rey clenched her shaking hands before her and refused to meet his eyes.

“Didn’t believe what?”

“You’ve got potential, Rey of Jakku.”

Rey did her best to swallow her anger.

“Is that why you didn’t kill me?” she asked. “Because I had potential?”

“Isn’t that why you didn’t kill me?” he shot back. “Because you saw a potential for Light?”

Rey didn’t say anything. It was the truth, but it brought back memories of Snoke’s words.

_Young fool,_ he'd said. _You were not wise enough to resist the bait._

And she hadn’t been. She hadn’t been wise enough to see and she hadn’t been strong enough to escape the lure.

“You came to me because you believed I could be turned. I let you live for the same reason,” Kylo said. 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

She shoved ahead of him, wanting more than anything just to get out from under his stare and the memories of her unbearable naivete that were crowding into her mind. Even as she did, she heard the first tendrils of his music stretching toward her and working their slow way across the bond.

“Your shoulder needs treated,” Kylo said as she stalked past. “And you need your stomach looked at too. Any deeper and you’d have been dead a long time ago.”

Rey didn’t even turn around to speak.

“Stop reading my thoughts Kylo,” she said. “You have no right.”

She walked ahead of him for a few steps before he caught up with her.

“I meant what I said, Rey,” he said. “I’m taking you to the med bay.”

“Don’t you have to go find Hux?” she asked.

“Hux can wait or find me there.”

“I’ve told you, I’m fine,” she said. “It’s only a little blood and I’ve dealt with pain before. They’ll heal. Give me a med kit and I can stitch myself up.”

He studied her for a minute and she felt him probing her thoughts again. On instinct, she threw up a barrier between them. The presence vanished and Kylo winced.

“Keep out of my head,” she growled.

“Alright,” he said, rubbing his temples. “Thanks for the headache.”

“I warned you the first time and you didn’t listen.”

Kylo Ren opened his mouth to answer but before he could, the sound of boots echoed down the corridor. A few seconds later, a red-haired man flanked by several storm troopers turned the corner. He started backwards when he saw her and the storm troopers raised their blasters.

“How did you escape again?” Hux asked, before his eyes darted to the figure behind her.

Rey took a few steps backward as Kylo moved in front of her.

“She didn’t,” he said.

“What is the meaning of this, Ren?” Hux said, glancing between them.

Kylo took a deep breath.

“The Supreme Leader is dead,” he said. “And Rey has joined the First Order.”

Hux’s eyes flashed to Rey and she took several more steps back, allowing Kylo to stand between her and the rabid anger in that gaze.

“The girl killed the Supreme Leader and you let her walk free?”

Rey made an involuntary noise of protest. A moment later Kylo’s voice drifted through her thoughts.

_Don’t speak. Let him think what he thinks._

“She’s not free,” Kylo said aloud. “She’s under my supervision.”

“Why doesn’t that comfort me?” Hux said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“It should comfort you Hux,” Kylo said through his teeth. “Another Force sensitive is an asset to our cause.”

“An asset?” he retorted, “She killed the Supreme Leader.”

Rey watched as the muscles across Kylo’s shoulders went tight. She didn’t have to listen to the Force to know he was fighting his anger.

“The Supreme Leader, himself, ordered me to find her and bring her before him.”

“And she killed him.”

“Before she turned,” Kylo said.

“It’s too convenient,” said Hux, “What if she’s a spy.”

“Until she proves herself, she will not be privy to our discussions.”

“How do you know-“

“Hux,” Kylo cut him off, “Though you find them detestable, my powers are not without their benefits. She is not lying.”

Hux scowled, but didn’t say anything.

“Now,” Kylo said, “call the fleet back. We’ve taken heavy damage and need to regroup.” 

“What?”

“You heard me Hux. Draw our forces back from Crait.”

“You dare command me? My army?”

“Our Supreme Leader is dead,” Kylo said. “I was his apprentice in the Force.”

It was clear to Rey what Kylo was insinuating. When she looked at Hux, she saw from his murderous expression that it was clear to him too. She glanced to Kylo when she heard the building hum of the dark side and noticed his fingers twitching at his side.

“The Force,” Hux mocked. “Where has the mysterious Force gotten us? It has been the might of my army-“

The general’s voice cut off with a gasping choke as Kylo’s arm raised and his hand started to squeeze. The stormtroopers took a few steps forward before Kylo flicked his eyes toward them.

“You will stand down,” he said, waving his free hand in their direction.

“We will stand down,” the two replied in a monotone, backing up and lowering their weapons.

“Do you see how easy it would be to kill you, Hux?” he asked, “I wouldn’t even have to use a weapon.”

The man made a pathetic, gasping croak in reply. Kylo closed his hand a little tighter. Rey shut her eyes, struggling not to listen to the man’s fight to breathe. 

“You wish to say something?” Kylo asked.

There was a pause.

“Long live the Supreme Leader,” came the general’s voice, hoarse and strained.

There was a thud as Kylo released him and he crumpled to the floor.

“Now, do as I’ve instructed.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

“Don’t cross me Hux.,” Kylo said, his voice empty and cold, “And if you touch my apprentice, or speak a word against her, I’ll do worse than this.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

Without another word, Kylo turned his back on the prostrate general and strode down the corridor as if nothing had happened. Rey took a deep breath and followed after him, looking everywhere but at the man her new Master had subdued with a clench of his fist.


	4. Chapter 4: Kylo Ren

Kylo stormed through the brightly lit hall toward the med bay and tried to ignore the emotions that wrapped tight around his chest. His fingers itched to seize his lightsaber and strike at something. The strangling fury was familiar, but it wasn’t welcome. Everything in him was screaming with a desire to lash out in blind rage, to wreak destruction if for no other reason than to calm the chaos in his head.

Anger was common after dealing with Armitage Hux, but the general had pushed him over the edge of mere anger this time, first by insinuating Kylo had no claim to lead the New Order, and then by mocking the Force. He’d hardly been aware of what he was doing when he pulled on the Force to choke the weaselly little man. In the end, it had been Rey’s look of horror that kept Kylo from killing him then and there. 

Even as they left Hux lying in the passage behind, he felt her fear. He’d sensed the emotion in her before: every time she’d been near him in body or in bond, she’d been frightened. But it was different this time. The strength she carried had all but disappeared and was replaced with a raw terror. Though he figured he already knew its source, he tried to probe into her mind again only to be met by the same barrier between them.

“I can tell you’re trying to pry,” she said. “I’ve already told you twice to stop.”

“You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?”

“Do I have any reason not to be?” she asked. 

Kylo sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, fingers running along the scar over his right eye and down the cheek: the scar Rey had given him.

“I know you feel my anger,” he said. “But it’s not against you.”

“I know very well who you’re angry with,” she said. “I just wonder when your temper will turn against me.”

He didn’t say anything at once, but her question rang in his ears. There was only silence for long seconds and he sensed her anxiety growing. 

“I can’t promise I’ll never get angry,” he said. “But I will not hurt you in my anger. I swear I won’t.”

Rey shook her head.

“You can’t control yourself Kylo,” she said. “You are more slave to the dark side than you are master.”

She was right, and it pained him to admit it. He could only bring himself to nod before he turned and continued down the hall, anger fading into familiar isolation.

“Keep up,” he said.

She didn’t reply, but the sound of her footsteps followed him down the corridor. As they neared the med bay, people began to crowd into the hall, all going the same direction. The sense of fear and unease from Rey became stronger the more people entered. Everyone gave Kylo a wide berth, but he didn’t think that Rey might have difficulty passing until he felt the spike of her terror and heard an angry:

“Let me go, you…you-“

There was a cry of pain as her Basic cut off, and she began a stream of words in a language he didn’t understand. 

Kylo turned just in time to see Rey struggling against a stormtrooper that had her by the injured shoulder. She squirmed as the man closed his fingers tighter. 

“Let. Me. Go,” she said, spitting out each word as a separate sentence.

Kylo was about to intervene when Rey stilled in the man’s grasp. He almost smiled as he felt her reaching for the Force and starting to bend it toward the man. He raised his own hand and turned the attention of anyone else away from her. 

“You will let me go,” Rey said to the stormtrooper. 

“I will let you go,” intoned the man.

He dropped his arm and walked down the hall on whatever business he’d been on before. Kylo watched his apprentice’s shoulders slump forward as the fight left her. A dark patch of blood grew on her tunic and he saw a trickle of red begin to run down her arm.

“Well done,” he said.

Rey flinched and glanced at him.

“You could have told him I’m your apprentice,” she said. 

“I was about to, but you beat me to it.”

“Is everyone going to assume I’m an escaped prisoner?”

He shrugged.

“Probably for a while. I’ll have a message sent out.”

“I’d be grateful,” she said.

They walked in silence for a few minutes before Kylo’s curiosity got the better of him.

“What language was that?” he asked. “I didn’t recognize it.”

His own relief mirrored the emotion that seeped through from Rey’s side of the bond. At last, he’d hit on a safe subject.

“Teedospeak.”

“Haven’t heard it.”

“That’s because you weren’t ever a scavenger on a Force-forsaken desert planet one step removed from nowhere.”

“Fair enough,” he said with a half-smile. “Can you speak Bocce?”

Rey shrugged before speaking a few sentences. Kylo replied with the corresponding phrases. The words were familiar on his tongue, but they tasted bitter. Guilt burned in him.

“Where did you learn that?” he asked.

“I picked up a bit from the traders that stopped on Jakku. The rest I learned from Ha-“ 

Her face drained of color and she stopped in the middle of her sentence. He felt her emotions twist into sadness and anger.

“The rest you learned from Han Solo,” he said, finishing her thought for her. “I know. He taught me too.”

Rey gave a stiff nod but didn’t say anything else as they entered the med bay. Her convoluted mix of emotions followed her like a black storm cloud. Kylo felt his own anger rise up in his chest. They’d been so close to a normal conversation, and once again, he’d messed up. He let out an annoyed breath, glancing around him at the chaos, and signaled a med droid while he carefully avoided Rey’s glare. 

“How may I assist you?” chirped the droid as it walked up.

“Electro plasma burns,” Kylo said. “Shoulder and stomach.”

The droid clicked as it ran through stored information then gave a short beep. 

“Follow me please,” it said.

Kylo put a gentle hand on Rey’s uninjured shoulder and guided her forward.

“Go on,” he said.

Rey’s anxiety spiked as he touched her and she threw off his hand, walking after the droid on her own. Kylo’s stomach twisted a little when he saw the way she held her spine straight even as her fear swirled around her. He’d seen what her life had been before when he searched her mind to find the map. He’d seen her fears and weakness and Snoke had played them to their fullest advantage to lure her in and destroy her. The screams of pain she’d let out as the Supreme Leader pried into her mind still echoed in his thoughts and unsettled him. Snoke’s had been the one life that Kylo had not questioned taking. 

Rey disappeared behind a partition and he found that he was at a loss. With nothing more pressing to do while he waited, he found a wall and sat down cross-legged with his back against it. His eyes closed of their own accord and he drifted between sleep and waking for a long time as the buzz of many voices drifted around him.  
His eyes snapped open, but he instinctively knew he wasn’t awake in the natural sense. Rey was sitting across from him on an exam table, patiently waiting as a droid applied a silvery mesh over the wound that arched across her stomach. Her eyes came up and she gasped, scooting backward on the table. 

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m not,” he said. 

She cocked her head in her strange way, then sighed.

“No, you’re not, are you.” 

“I thought this would stop after I killed Snoke.” 

“So did I,” she said. 

The droid finished placing the mesh in her wound and covered it with a bacta patch. Rey winced, but kept still. The med droid moved on to her shoulder and began to peel back the sleeve of her tunic. Rey sucked in a breath and squeezed her eyes shut. 

On instinct, Kylo stretched out his hand toward her, meaning to take hers as he had done when she was halfway across the galaxy. But as he reached for her, she disappeared. He came back to reality standing next to the wall, grasping at empty space, desperate to hold onto her presence. A passing stormtrooper gave him a curious look but didn’t stop to ask. 

Kylo stood still, trying to cling to the fading sensation of calm that always pervaded his connections with Rey. As it always did, it disappeared as Rey herself had done, leaving him stranded in a familiar storm of conflicting emotions and fear. Above all, there was always fear.

The chaos of the med bay only compounded the chaos in his head. His fingers curled around the hilt of his lightsaber as his frustration and anger surged up from nowhere. He   
was on the verge of igniting it and striking out at the closest med droid when Rey appeared from behind the wall. When she saw his drawn saber she backed up, almost running into the droid that followed her from the room, and reached for her own weapon. 

He froze as she studied him for a moment and closed her eyes. He saw her before him but, as he sensed the Force surrounding her, she seemed to grow distant- moving far away to a place he could not reach. He reached out with his mind, searching for their bond.

“Rey?” he called.

No words came to him, but the storm in his mind eased as a strange emotion filled him. Rey opened her eyes and met his.

“What did you do?” he asked.

She lifted a shoulder in a lopsided shrug.

“I’m not really sure.”

He returned his lightsaber to its sheath and took a deep breath. The world around him seemed less overwhelming, somehow, now that she was with him. He glanced at the bacta patches covering her wounds.

“How do you feel?”

“Fine,” she said. 

He sensed it was the only answer he was going to get from her. Her eyes stared past him and he noticed, for the first time, the dark half-moons beneath them that bore testament to her lack of sleep.

“How long has it been since you slept?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “A day, maybe more. Why do you care?”

“Because if I’m going to train you, you need to be alert.”

“I am alert,” she protested.

Kylo struck out with his hand, stopping it a hairsbreadth from her forehead. Rey flinched, but her hand was slow in coming up to knock him away.

“You need rest.”

“You need to shove off.”

“Rey, be reasonable.”

“This is as reasonable as I get,” she said, mixed annoyance and fear radiating from her.

Kylo let out an exasperated sigh.

“Look,” he said, “I’ve got to go figure out how to get the government back in some semblance of order. You can’t come with me, so I’m taking you to your apartments. What you do in them is your business, but I’d recommend that you sleep.”

“And what if I don’t?”

“Then I won’t train you,” he said. “You’re the only one with something to lose in this situation.”

She crossed her arms and scowled at him.

“Are you always so stubborn?” he asked.

“Of all the people in this galaxy, you ought to know just how stubborn I can be Kylo Ren.”

He did know. The only reason she was here was because she stubbornly clung to the belief that he could be saved. It was an endearing quality when he didn’t have to argue with her to sleep. He turned his back and motioned for her to follow.

He made it several steps before he realized that she hadn’t moved. He stopped and turned around. She stood in the middle of the med bay, looking like a lost child as people shoved past from all directions. Still, she stubbornly refused to look at him.

“Rey, please,” he said.

She shook her head, her fear still strong enough to bleed through the bond.

“I’ll leave you here,” he said. 

Her eyes darted up to see if he were serious. When she saw that he was, her shoulders sagged a little and she gave in. He felt a smile twitching the corners of his mouth as she dragged her feet across the floor. He could just remember doing something like that as a little boy when his mother called him inside for dinner. 

His mother.

A wave of sadness rolled over him. He could still feel the warmth of her presence in the Force. Crait was many millions of miles away, yet he knew his mother walked the surface of the salt planet he’d left behind. He could go to her now. He could find an excuse to give Hux to meet with the leader of the Resistance. He’d be willing to do it if only to see her face. She’d never been able to give up hope that he would return to her. But he couldn’t face her. Not after everything. 

Not after Han.


	5. Chapter 5: Kylo Ren

“These are your apartments.”

Rey stood next to him, staring up at the door and looking about as uncertain as he’d ever seen her. Kylo reached across to the access pad and scanned his palm. The door opened with a rush of air and Rey peered through the entryway.

“This is mine?” she asked.

“Yes. As long as we’re on this ship.”

“But there’s so much room.”

“These are fairly standard quarters,” he said.

Rey crept into the room and looked around her. It was strange to see her examining her new surroundings: peering into cupboards and around doorways. Her face registered surprise when she saw the bedroom.

“Who in the galaxy needs this much space?” she asked nobody in particular.

Kylo watched her take it all in with something like amusement. He had to fight down a laugh when she found the refresher. There was silence for a minute before he heard the rush of a shower activating and Rey’s surprised squawk. A second later she marched out of the room, half drenched, leaving puddles of water behind her.

“I figured out the shower.” she said, wringing out her hair.

“I’ll have some clean clothes sent up.” he said, the effort to keep a straight face straining his voice. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll look in on you in a while and see how you’re doing.”

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Wherever they need me,” he said. “So probably just about everywhere.”

“Oh.”

She sounded almost disappointed.

“If you need me, just call out,” he said, tapping the side of his head.

“Can anyone get in here?” she asked, throwing a glance behind him at the door.

“Only me. You can code your palm to the sensor whenever you want.”

“Can I take yours off?”

So much for her being disappointed.

“Whenever you want.” he said. 

She nodded and squeezed water from her tunic.

“Training tomorrow?” she asked.

“Only if you sleep.”

She rolled her eyes and turned to look at an empty bowl on the kitchen table.

“Is there anything to eat on this ship?” she asked.

“I’ll send something up with the clothes.” he said. “Is there anything else you need?”

Rey shook her head.

“Good.” he said. “Then I’ll check on you later.”

The door hissed closed behind him and he stood alone in the hallway. Somehow the loneliness was even more oppressive than before. He was tempted to ignore his duties and go back inside to watch Rey explore, but as soon as he checked his commlink, he rethought the idea. 

Messages streamed past, most of them from Hux. He clenched his jaw and shoved the device in his pocket. Hux was the last person in the galaxy he wanted to see. He might actually take his Uncle Luke over the man.

“That’s saying something,” he said to himself as he strode down the corridors to the bridge, typing a message for one of the troopers on sanitation duty to bring clothes and food to Rey's room.

He spotted the general’s red hair almost before he got through the door. Hux was surrounded by people that were all talking at once and all looked as agitated as Kylo felt.

“The attack destroyed twenty of our destroyers,” someone was saying, “Twenty!”

“The starboard wing was completely severed,” someone else said. “Most of the reactors are nonfunctioning. If we even tried the others, we’d risk irradiating the ship because the cooling system is offline.”

“The Supremacy is already in Crait’s orbit. We wouldn’t be able to get her out again unless we manage to get her repaired.”

“Good luck with that,” someone quipped.

“What are the Supreme Leader’s orders?”

“Do we pursue the Resistance?”

Kylo watched as Hux rubbed his throat before standing a little straighter.

“The Supreme Leader is dead,” he said, “His apprentice Kylo Ren has taken his place.”

“What?” said a familiar voice.

Kylo looked down to see Phasma, her once bright armor tarnished and clouded. Her helmet was gone, and her face was fierce and covered in ash. A burn stretched over the skin around her left eye, swelling it shut. Kylo decided to head her off before she made her displeasure known. He knew as well as everyone else that her loyalty lay with Hux. 

“Be careful what you say next, trooper,” he said, hand already on his lightsaber. 

Phasma’s eyes went wide as she looked up at him, but her mouth snapped shut. 

“Does anyone else wish to voice their objections?” he asked. 

No one spoke.

“Good,” he said. “Now, is the Supremacy functional?”

“Functional, yes. Salvageable, no,” said a man in an engineering uniform.

“We’ll further assess the damage,” said Kylo. “If it proves to be as extensive as we think, we’ll scuttle her, but for now we’ll stay where we are. Have the ships returned from Crait?”

“Some have arrived, Supreme Leader,” said a voice. “The rest are in hyperspace and should be arriving at several battlecruisers scattered across the galaxy within the next hour.” 

“Good.”

“Beg pardon, Supreme Leader,” asked one of the admirals, “aren’t we going to go after them? The Resistance, I mean.”

Kylo stared at the man, who quickly dropped his eyes.

“They just blew apart the largest ship the First Order has. We’ve lost resources, time, and more lives than we can spare. Right now we’re going to regroup, not stretch ourselves thin by going into battle to soothe our wounded pride.”

“But Supreme Leader-“ began the man.

“Have I made myself clear, admiral?”

“Yes, sir.”

Kylo glanced around, waiting for the next protest. When none came he nodded.

“You’re all dismissed to continue working to recover your comrades. I’ll need a full damage report and a list of missing and deceased personnel as soon as possible.”

As soon as they scattered, Hux approached. Kylo swallowed his groan.

“Why are we not pursuing them?” he asked. “We have the Resistance in our grasp. We could wipe them from the galaxy.”

“The Resistance is all but dead, Hux,” he said, “leave it be.”

“I will not leave it be,” spat Hux, “and neither should you. Whatever happened to hunting down Skywalker? Snoke was convinced he was the key. Destroy Skywalker, destroy the Resistance.”

“Skywalker is a broken man who refuses to fight. Snoke himself admitted he was mistaken. Rey is the key to defeating the Resistance. She’s here now, so why waste men and ammunition where it is least needed.”

“While anyone in the Resistance lives, there is still hope.”

Kylo scoffed.

“You think that Hux,” he said, “but you’re wrong. While Rey stood with them there was hope. They know she is my match in the Force. How much hope will they have when they find out she has joined us?”

“You put a lot of faith in this girl.”

“She is strong in the Force, but untrained. My equal in power.”

“What of it?”

Kylo’s anger spiked and he grabbed the general by the collar.

“Don’t you understand Hux? Rey is the one we’ve been hunting for, not Skywalker.”

Hux jerked himself out of Kylo’s grasp and took a step backwards.

“No,” he said, “she’s the one you’ve been hunting for.” 

He turned back to the observation window and stared out at the curve of the world below them.

“I will respect your orders for now, Supreme Leader,” he said. “But the Resistance must die.”

“Are you threatening treason?”

“I’m threatening whatever I have to to bring order to this galaxy.” 

The hair on the back of Kylo’s neck stood straight as a cold shaft of fear stabbed into him.

“Remember who you’re talking to.” he said.

“I do.” Hux replied, his voice devoid of emotion. “You remember where your loyalties lie.”

“How can I forget?” Kylo snapped.

Hux smirked.

“It seems as though you already have, Supreme Leader.”

Kylo didn’t miss the disdain in Hux’s voice, or the threat. He growled and flung out his arm toward the man, fingers flexed. Hux retreated backward and the expression of pride slipped to be replaced by fear. Kylo smiled and dropped his arm.

“Don’t forget what I can do, Hux.”

The general rubbed a hand over his throat and turned away.

“If you’ll excuse me, Supreme Leader, I have things to do.”

Kylo dismissed him with a wave and stood, staring out at the planet spinning below him.

“I’ve bought you time mother,” he murmured, “Don’t waste it.”

By the time he got back to his apartments, his legs burned from walking over the ship. The muscles in his neck were tight with stress and he had a headache beginning behind his eyes. Still, he couldn’t resist the temptation to walk past Rey’s door and knock. There wasn’t an answer, so he scanned his palm, certain nothing would happen.

To his surprise, the door slid open.

“Rey?” he asked, poking his head around the doorway. 

No answer.

There was a pile of dirty clothes outside the refresher and he could smell soap, but his apprentice was nowhere to be seen. He took a few steps into the room. She wasn’t there.

“Rey?” he called again softly.

The door to her bedroom was cracked open and he knocked against the frame.

“Rey? I just came by to check on you.”

He peered in and saw her curled on her side wrapped in a blanket. Her eyes were closed, her mouth was open, and her hair was loose from its buns, lying in a tangled, half damp mess against her neck. Her chest rose and fell in the gentle breaths of a sleeper perfectly at peace. In that moment he caught a glimpse of her, not as an enemy or an apprentice but as she was, another human being like himself: lost in a destiny too big for her. He found that, for that brief space of time, she was more beautiful to him than she’d ever been. He felt the corners of his mouth turn up in the first genuine smile he’d given all day. 

“Sleep well Rey.” he whispered and closed the door.


	6. Chapter 6: Rey

_Rey was a child again, running from monsters. Blue lighting crackled around her, sending pain through her skin when it flashed close enough to touch her. Her head ached and there was pain so deep in her bones that she stumbled and cried out. Another voice answered hers, screaming in agony. A child’s voice. A boy’s voice. It echoed from all sides and she turned, uncertain where to find the source. The voice kept wailing, but its pitch shifted, going deeper until she realized it was a man’s hoarse scream. She knew it. She knew it like she knew his music. _

_“Stop it,” the words came to her unbidden. “Stop hurting him.”_

_The screaming didn’t stop. More voices joined it until it became a terrible chorus that sent the hair on the nape of her neck upright. She clamped her hands over her ears and tried to run away. The floor seemed to tilt beneath her and she staggered, falling to hands and knees._

_She huddled there, shielding herself from the lightning with her arms, terror like a thick smoke in her mind. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there._

_Her surroundings shifted and she was standing in front of an angry crowd. They shouted things she couldn’t quite hear, but she knew by the faces that she didn’t want to. She tried to tune out the terrifying sounds, but the harder she tried to ignore them, the more clear they became._

_“Traitor.”_

_“Sellout.”_

_She recognized the voices and spun to see the once familiar faces of her friends, twisted in rage. Finn’s eyes were hard and black as he pointed his finger at her. Poe stood at his side, an expression of utter contempt painting his features. Leia was the worst. It wasn’t anger that hardened her face. It was disappointment and a mother’s long anguish revealed._

_“We trusted you, Rey.”_

_“Coward.”_

_The words hissed around her, stinging like physical blows. Rey opened her mouth to defend herself, but nothing came out. She listened in silence as her friends called her everything she knew she deserved. Tears began to run down her cheeks and she found her voice at last._

_“I’m sorry,” she cried out. “I’m so sorry.”_

She woke from her dream to someone pounding on her bedroom door. It took her a few moments of panic before she realized that she wasn’t waking up on Ahch-To and to remember her promise of the day before. The drumbeat of the fist didn’t go away.

“What?” she groaned, rolling onto her side and squinting through tears at the offending portal.

“Get up,” came the muffled voice from the other side, “I thought you wanted to train.”

Kylo Ren. She groaned again and buried her head under her pillow. She knew she should have removed his palm print from the access sensor.

“I thought you wanted me to sleep.” she said.

“And you did,” came the reply. 

Rey sighed and sat up, pushing strands of hair out of her face.

“Are you getting up?”

“Yes.”

The floor was cold under her bare feet as she stumbled to the door and pulled it open. Kylo Ren stood on the other side, his dark frame filling the entrance. He stared down at her red face and watery eyes. His mouth came open, and she didn’t have to open the bond to know he was about to ask a question she didn’t want to answer.

“Get out of my way Ren,” she said. “I have to pee.”

He backed up like she’d threatened him with a lightsaber. 

“Take your time.” he said. 

Rey didn’t look at him as she disappeared into the refresher and shut him out. She turned and found herself staring at her reflection in the little mirror over the sink. Her hair was tangled in knots and one cheek had marks from the wrinkles in the sheets. Her eyes were bleary and tear stained and the dark circles still stained the skin beneath them. She ignored her reflection and started to work out the tangles in her hair with her fingers, pulling the strands up into three buns. 

A stormtrooper had brought a small pile of clothes for her soon after Kylo left her room the night before and she sifted through the crumpled garments before pulling on a gray tunic over the body glove she’d slept in. Satisfied, she turned from the mirror and left. Kylo sat sprawled on the couch with his back to her, seemingly staring at nothing.

“Kylo?” she asked. 

He jerked like she’d woken him and got to his feet. 

“You ready to go?” he asked.

She didn’t respond.

“Have you got your saber?” 

In answer, she stretched out her hand and called on the Force. The next second her weapon was in her hand. When she turned back to Kylo, she startled and backed up. The crackling blade of his lightsaber was mere inches from her chest.

“Lesson number one,” said Kylo, deactivating the weapon and crossing his arms. “On this ship, keep that with you wherever you go. Keep it near you even when you sleep. In the time it took you to call it to yourself, someone could have killed you.”

Rey stared at him like he was speaking a different language.

“Survival, Rey,” he explained. “You’re going to have a lot of enemies on this ship because I have a lot of enemies.”

“Terrific.” she said, tucking her lightsaber into her belt. “And here I thought they’d hate me just because I fought with the Resistance.”

“Unfortunately, no, though they won’t take kindly to that either.”

“Great.”

He gave her a wry smile and motioned her to follow him.

“Come on,” he said, “We can’t duel here.”

“Where are we going?” she asked, jogging after him.

“The training room,” he said. “I don’t have any practice sabers, so we’ll have to make do with our own. Just as long as you promise not to take a swipe at my face again.”

Rey glanced up at the long pale scar that ran from his eye down his cheek. Guilt twisted in her chest.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“You are?” 

He glanced at her and she sensed him on the fringes of her mind, searching her emotions.

“You actually are, aren’t you?”

“Why is that so hard to believe?” she asked.

“I thought you hated me.”

“More of a strong dislike,” she said.

“Yet you still want to train with me,” he said.

“Luke didn’t leave me much of a choice.”

It almost seemed like his face fell a little before smoothing back into his usual impassive expression.

“What did he teach you?”

Rey thought back.

“He taught me how to sense the Force around me.”

“That’s it?”

She nodded.

“The rest I’ve sort of figured out on my own.”

Kylo ran a hand over his face and blew out a long breath.

“Force help me, I’ve got so much work to do.”

“Hey.”

“Did he at least teach you how to meditate?”

“Yes, but I think I do it differently than he did.”

“Well it’s a start anyway.”

They were quiet for a moment and Rey took the time to study her new Master. She’d nearly memorized his face after seeing him so often through the bond, but it seemed different now. The dark circles under his eyes were deeper and there was little color in his cheeks. He looked ill.

“Are you alright Kylo?”

He blinked like he was coming out of a dream.

“What?”

“Are you alright?”

“Yes,” he said, “I just didn’t sleep well last night.”

Rey looked at the dark circles again and wondered how long it had been since he’d slept well.

“Me neither.”

“Are you alright?”

She shrugged in answer and kept up her pace behind him. To her relief, the only memory of her injuries was a dull ache in her stomach and shoulder.

“Here it is,” said Kylo, stopping at a door.

He scanned his hand and they walked in. Rey stared around her. It was a huge empty space, almost cavernous in appearance.

“What is this?”

“A training room,” Kylo said, his voice echoing. “The stormtroopers don’t use it until they’re off duty, so it’s ours for a few hours.”

“Then let’s get started,” Rey said as she plopped down and closed her eyes to listen to the Force.

There was a full second of silence.

“What are you doing?”

“Listening.”

Kylo let out a noise of exasperation and she could almost hear him roll his eyes. She cracked an eye and looked up at him. He had grabbed the neck of his tunic and was pulling it over his head, crumpling the fabric into a ball and tossing it to the side. The black shirt beneath left his arms free and she wondered for a split second if she should have worn something more practical than the loose tunic, so easy to catch hold of in close combat.

“What are you doing?”

“Stand up,” he instructed, ignoring her question.

She obeyed, scrambling to her feet. 

“This time, use your emotions. They can guide you to the Force, just as meditation does. You did it yesterday, once, when you were angry with me.”

“You want me to try to find the dark side?”

“That’s why you agreed to be my apprentice- you wanted me to teach you what I know.”

“I don’t know,” she said, uncertain. 

“If you want power, then you need the dark side.”

Rey bit her lip, suddenly conflicted. This was why she joined him as his apprentice, but at the suggestion she access the darkness, her courage faltered. Kylo sighed.

“Maybe we should just start with the sabers.”

Rey couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face as she reached for her weapon. She ignited the blade watching its blue light erupt from the hilt and reflect in Kylo’s eyes. He ignited his own saber and took a step forward, extending it until the blade was inches from hers.

“Now concentrate,” he said. “You bested me because I was injured and wasn’t trying to kill you and you made it out alive when you fought the guards only through blind luck. You can’t just run into a battle and slash at anything that moves. I’m surprised you haven’t cut your own arm off.”

Rey took up her position and watched him as he started to circle her like a wild animal, inspecting her stance. His foot nudged hers outward.

“Keep a wide base, if you can, especially if you’re fighting a Force sensitive.”

Rey settled herself and rolled her shoulders, working out the tension that seemed to live there ever since she’d come aboard the _Finalizer_. Kylo’s fingers found her arm and she jerked away from him. He raised an eyebrow.

“Stars, you’re skittish,” he said, withdrawing his hand. “Bring your arm up a little more and keep the saber at an angle across your body. You’ll have more success blocking a blow.”

He brought his saber up in an arch and she batted it away.

“Good.”

He tried a few more strokes, testing her guard. A sense of unease settled over Rey. The last time she’d battled Kylo Ren she’d thought he’d been out for blood. She tried to brush away the emotion and focus, but every movement seemed to have a memory of the forest battle superimposed. She shivered. Kylo stopped and watched her through narrowed eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she lied, taking a step forward and giving a quick thrust toward his chest. 

Kylo checked the blow and twisted away, but he was back in a moment, bearing down on her with several heavy strokes. Rey backed out from under him, desperately trying to keep her focus on defending herself. She faltered, stumbling as she gave up more ground, running from the memory of his fury.

“Draw on the Force.” Kylo said. “Use it to push back.” 

Rey forced herself to stand straight beneath Kylo’s shadow and reached for the only emotion strong enough to register in her mind. Fear. She clung to the shrill pitch of her terror and twisted. A cold darkness swept through her and the low hum of the dark side filled her ears. It was as though she were back in the cave on Ahch-To. She felt the same freezing thrill that she sensed as she broke the surface of the black pool. The new sensation fed her fear and, in turn, fueled the darkness. Power surged through her, sharpening her focus to a needle point and lending strength to her muscles. 

She darted forward, striking at Kylo’s exposed side. He deflected her stroke and took a step back, bringing his saber up in defense. Rey circled him, her fear slowly turning to a carefully controlled flame of anger. The Force around her sank to a lower pitch and her feet wove patterns as she stalked about. 

Kylo’s eyes trailed her, his muscles tight and ready to spring. She felt him shift the second before he leapt forward, instinctively knowing where he would strike. Her blade met his in a shower of sparks.

“For someone who’s scared of the dark side, you take to it well,” he said, using his weight to push her back.

Rey’s anger flared up and she tried to duck out from under him to get in a cut. He spun and gave a curious flick of his saber. Her weapon sailed across the room. She thrust out her hand, fully expecting to feel the snap of the lightsaber hitting her palm, but nothing happened. She tried again, casting about for the pull of the crystal. Nothing. Her anger vanished to be replaced by confusion, but with it came a strange sensation of emptiness. She felt wrong. The music of the dark side faded and she staggered in the sudden absence. Kylo saw her weakness and held his saber at her neck. 

“Yield?”

“Yield,” she replied, her confusion deepening.

Kylo pulled his other hand from behind his back and tossed her saber at her with a grin that Rey had never seen before. She caught it and stared at him.

“How did you-“

“Years of practice against my knights.”

“Your knights?”

“You’ll meet them soon enough.”

“Where are they?” she asked, looking around as though they would step from the walls.

“Several different ships patrolling the Expansion Region.”

“Why the Expansion Region?”

Kylo gave her a small smile.

“Maybe I’ll tell you one day.”

Rey opened her mouth to remind him that he’d promised not to keep things from her, but a look from Kylo silenced her. It wasn’t worth an argument. He circled her again, his lightsaber hissing at her throat.

“Now, where did you go wrong?”

“I dropped my guard?” she asked.

“Close, but not quite,” he said. “You dropped your hold on the Force.”

“But my saber-“

“There are other ways to fight without your saber. If you limit yourself to a weapon, you die.”

Rey turned in a circle to follow him.

“Then teach me.” she said. “Isn’t that what we’re here for?”

“Are you willing to use the dark side?” he asked.

She hesitated. It came so easily to her, maybe Luke had been right. Maybe she was just like Kylo. If he hadn’t been strong enough to resist its pull, who was she to think she could walk the line between light and dark. Even now, she sought the power the dark side would grant- already lusted after it. She looked down at her hands clutching the silver hilt of Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber. They shook as she looked back to Kylo and nodded. 

“Show me.”

Kylo deactivated his lightsaber and sheathed it at his side. She heard the dark side rising around him even as he pulled his hand away. Sparks began to appear around his fingers and she smelled electricity in the air. The hum became almost deafening as he crossed his arms at his chest. Lightning branched around him, curling into a shield that enclosed him in something like a glowing web. She squinted in the flickering light, watching him through the spaces. 

As suddenly as it appeared, the lightning disappeared and Kylo stood, trembling and sweating, in the middle of the floor. A trickle of blood ran from his nose. Rey’s eyes drifted down to the palms of his hands and she noticed two blistering burns at their centers.

Kylo closed his eyes and Rey heard the song of the dark side again. The blisters shrank and the charred skin cracked and flaked from his hands, revealing smooth pink scars. The song faded and Kylo’s eyes flickered open. For a second, his face betrayed pain and exhaustion before he smoothed it all away.

“In time, I’ll teach you to both destroy and heal,” he said. “The dark grants the power to do either.”

Rey could only stare at the silvery, twisting scars that ran down his arms.

“How many times have you done that?” she whispered.

“More than I can count,” he said, with a shrug.

“It hurts you, doesn’t it?”

“Not as much as it used to.”

Rey took a deep breath. Pain was no stranger, but to actively seek it out was a concept that went against every instinct life on Jakku had hammered into her. But wouldn’t the power she gained outweigh any pain she might experience, especially if it was only temporary? Confliction roiled in her, mixing with equal parts fear and confusion.   
She sensed Kylo reaching for her through the bond, guessing that he was trying to read her thoughts. He stood on the edge of her mind and called her name from a distance. The Force tugged at her, drawing her close to stand next to the barrier she still maintained between them. It was getting harder to shut him out. Her walls were growing cracks.  
Confused and afraid she flailed about in her mind, stretching out to the light Side, seeking the peace that always soothed her. It seemed to take longer to reach it, but after a minute, the strains of the song that wove itself among the stars grew loud enough to hear. She surrendered to it, letting it flow into her until the strange emotions afflicting her ebbed enough for her mind to become quiet.

Kylo’s eyes flicked to her the second she sank into the music and he stiffened. 

“You’re listening again, aren’t you?”

She closed her eyes and pulled in a long breath, holding on to the peace for as long as she could. The music filled her and calmed her boiling emotions. She clung to it for a minute before releasing the Force and opening her eyes. There was a sudden empty feeling like hunger gnawing in her chest. In the space of a second the peace of the light Side disappeared, and a dark desperation overtook her. All she wanted was something to fill the horrible void that had opened in her. Anger rose, unbidden, to consume her. 

“What if I am?” she asked, fingers tightening around her lightsaber.

Kylo’s eyes narrowed and she sensed him sifting through her emotions, trying to piece things together. Realization dawned on his face.

“You feel it, don’t you?”

“Feel what?” she snapped.

“The emptiness,” he gestured to his chest. “Here. Like a wound.”

“What of it?”

“I feel it too.”

“That’s nothing new,” she said. “We share emotions, remember.”

“Not like this,” he said. “Not this deep.”

“So, what?”

“What if the bond is getting stronger?”

Rey felt the muscles of her shoulders go tight. It was bad enough to never know when he would show up, or to feel the same emotions he did. But to take on his pain and confliction as if it were her own? She almost wished that Snoke had never connected them. 

The music of her anger swelled into a crescendo. She was angry with Kylo, angry with herself, and most of all, angry because of the clamor of emotions, voices, and pictures in her head. She longed to shut it all out and simply float with the peace of the light side again, but when she tried to reach it again, she found that she couldn’t.  
The chaos in her head became overwhelming and she fought to control herself. She was sensing too much for her mind to take in. Her thoughts felt too big for her skull. She clutched at her head, panting and beginning to shake. Memories crowded in from the far corners of her thoughts, refusing to be ignored.

“Rey,” said Kylo, quietly, “Take a deep breath.”

Rey’s eyes jumped from her Master to the door. Her legs tensed to run. She had to get out. She had to get away from him. Kylo’s fingers wrapped around her shoulders and held her fast. His eyes locked on hers, desperate and pleading with her to listen.

“Give your fear to me, Rey,” he said. “Let me help you.”

Rey panicked.

Her lightsaber sprang to life with a blue flame and she lashed out at Kylo’s exposed arm. A cut appeared on his forearm, blackened and cauterized. Kylo let out a yell and backed up, reaching for his weapon. It seemed to Rey that she was looking down on herself, slashing at the air like a savage, unable to stop herself. Anger coursed through her, a natural channel through which the dark side could flow. She let out a furious scream and swung at Kylo. He grunted in pain as her blade met his and sent a shock through his injured arm.  
She had him on the defensive. Wide-eyed, he gave up ground, furiously parrying her strokes. She could hear the deep rumble of the Force as he pulled at it and it struck a chord within her. Even in her crazed state, she knew what was happening. 

They were both singing the same melody now.

She sensed Kylo manipulating the Force around her before she saw his hand come up. She reached out with her mind, trying desperately to blink away the darkness growing behind her eyes. 

_Sleep, Rey._

Rey shook her head, stumbling forward. Her lightsaber dropped from her nerveless fingers, hitting the floor with a hard crack and rolling to a stop. She fought to stay conscious, but was rapidly losing her battle. Sounds blurred and faded, and the relief of her mind emptying made her knees buckle. She fell. Kylo caught her before she reached the ground. For a fading moment, she relished the silence of a peaceful mind before she slipped into a deep sleep.


	7. Chapter 7: Rey

She woke to find herself flat on her back, staring at the ceiling. When she turned her head, she started to see Kylo Ren sprawled next to her, propped up by the wall. His eyes were closed and he made the soft noises of a sleeper. 

“Kylo,” she hissed, nudging his leg.

He jerked awake with a gasp. 

“What’s going on?” he slurred.

“You put me to sleep?” Rey said accusingly.

Kylo groaned and twisted his neck until it popped.

“You were out of control,” he said, “It was the only way to stop you.”

“But-“

“You were on a path to hurt yourself,” he said.

Rey blinked and squinted, trying to remember what had happened.

“Did I hurt you?” she asked.

Kylo snorted.

“Hardly,” he said, but Rey noticed his hand moving to cover a dark patch of skin on his arm.

“I’m sorry, Kylo,” she sighed.

Kylo got slowly to his feet and stood with his back to the wall, arms crossed in front of him.

“We need to work on the bond.”

“What?” she squawked. “Why?”

“We’re going back to your apartments,” he said. “It’ll work better if you’re familiar with your surroundings.”

“Why?” she repeated.

“So I can help you. You reacted strongly to your first time using the dark side- even more so than I anticipated. You lost control to your fear- I can teach you how to keep it under a tight rein.”

Rey shook her head.

“You can’t control your own fear,” she said. “How do you expect to help me with mine?”

“Lessons are easier to teach when the teacher knows what the student feels,” he said. “Maybe we can help one another.”

He led her through the corridors back to her set of rooms and opened the door, allowing her to enter before him. Her spine prickled, but she kept her knees steady and managed to make it to a chair before she collapsed. Kylo sat opposite her, studying her face with his unflinching gaze. Rey grew uncomfortable and cast her eyes about the room, looking everywhere but at him. She felt him on the edge of her thoughts, stalking back and forth along her wall like a wild animal.

“Open your side of the bond.”

“No,” she said.

She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and refused to meet his eyes.

“Rey, this is important.”

“Not so important as keeping you out of my head. I’m not letting you sort through my thoughts again. One interrogation was enough.”

“I’m not interrogating you,” he said. “I promise I won’t look at anything I don’t have to. If I do, you can block me out.”

Rey curled tighter around herself

“What do you want to look at anyway?”

“Only the last few weeks- ever since you realized you could use the Force.”

Rey chewed her lip.

“That’s a lot of time for you to poke around in.”

“It won’t be everything- just the times you used the Force.”

“Why do you want to look into my mind at all?” she asked.

“To get an idea of how you use the Force and how it interacts with you. Most people don’t respond to the dark side with the panic that you did. You seem to be more sensitive to it.”

She avoided his eyes. There was a reason she was skittish around the dark side, quite apart from being taught that its users were irredeemable.

“You swear you won’t pry into anything but what you have to?”

“I swear,” he said. “I only want to help.”

Rey eyed him.

“Why?”

He didn’t answer for a long minute.

“You remind me of myself, a long time ago,” he said at last, his eyes glazing as he read her emotions. “You feel alone. Confused. Uncertain which way you should turn even now.”

Rey shook her head even as he was speaking.

“I’m not anything like you,” she said.

Kylo gave her a wry smile.

“You and I both know that isn’t true.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” she snapped.

“I know much about you,” he said. “Not all, but enough to know your weaknesses and strengths. I could turn any of them against you if I wanted.”

“Then why should I trust you in my mind?” she asked. “Why should I trust you at all?”

“Because I’m telling you,” he said. “And because I am not Snoke. I will not use you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Kylo flung his arms wide and Rey heard his emotion surge up, beating like waves of sound against the walls in her mind. He’d taken down his wall.

“Test me,” he said. “Open the bond and tell me if I’m lying.”

Rey hesitated. She could sense the strength of his music, muffled though it was with her wall still standing.

Kylo brought his chair closer and held out his hands to her. After a minute Rey slowly uncurled herself and stretched out her arms, movements careful as an animal approaching a strange human. Her fingers came to rest across his and she found that she was shaking in fear, both of him and of her own mind. 

“Just open the door,” said Kylo.

The jolt that went through her reminded her of the one on Ahch-To, but much stronger. Power surged through the bond, locking their minds together. The emotions she’d been hearing as a background music from Kylo shifted into sharp focus, loud and pulsing in her ears. It was disorienting, as it had been the first time she’d looked into his mind. The dark side in him pulled at a corresponding darkness in her and she had to force herself to ignore it.

She searched him for any sign that he hadn’t been honest. There was nothing but the bared truth that he knew her, probably better than any other person in the galaxy. There was no desire to use what he knew against her. Her forehead wrinkled.  
Kylo’s chuckle seemed to echo in her thoughts.

“Truth not lining up with your idea of me?” he asked.

“Why wouldn’t you use what you know?” she asked.

“I told you,” he said. “I’m not Snoke.”

“But you pledged yourself to the dark side. You have no qualms about killing, why would you take issue with using someone’s mind against them?”

“Is that what you think?” he asked, reading her thoughts. “That I kill because I enjoy it?”

“You killed your own father.”

Kylo’s expression twisted into something like pain.

“I don’t enjoy killing.”

“Then why do you do it?”

Kylo’s back went rigid and his jaw tightened.

“Your mind is already hostile territory. You wouldn’t listen to anything I have to say.”

“You told me once that you didn’t hate your father,” she said. “What other motivation is there to kill another person, especially one that loves you?”

As she spoke, Kylo’s pulse shot upwards beneath her fingers. Images began to flick through her mind, nearly making her dizzy with their speed. She got the idea that it was involuntary. Voices rang through her thoughts, coming to her as though from a distance. Then all at once, one came to her loud and clear.

_Ben!”_

Han’s voice in Kylo Ren’s memory.

She heard the name and Kylo’s thought that came after as if it were her own.

_ **No. Don’t make me do this Father.** _

_Fear. There was fear and a pain of knowing he couldn’t stop what he was about to do. He had to do it. He had to make it believable. It was a matter of self-preservation. _

_“Han Solo.”_

_ **Father.** _

_“I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time,” he said, words coming in a monotone._

_ **Leave. Please just leave. I’ll tell him you got away. Turn your back on me as I have turned on you.** _

_“Take off that mask. You don’t need it.”_

_“What do you think you’ll see if I do?”_

_ **What will you see, father? A man, or the monster Snoke has made me?** _

_“The face of my son.”_

_A wave of sorrow so deep he could have drowned in it. He wanted to drown. Why couldn’t this test have been anything else? He brought his hands up and pulled off the helmet. For the first time, he looked on his father with his unshielded eyes._

_ **I’m sorry.** _

_“Your son is gone,” he said. “He was weak and foolish like his father, so I destroyed him.”_

_ **Snoke destroyed him. Snoke is destroying him. Ben is long gone now.** _

_“That’s what Snoke wants you to believe. But it’s not true. My son is alive.”_

_“No,” he said. “The Supreme Leader is wise.”_

_ **Wise, yes. But cunning. Vicious.** _

_“Snoke is using you for your power. When he gets what he wants, he’ll crush you. You know it’s true.”_

_ **I know, father. I know better than you think I know.** _

_“It’s too late.”_

_The first true words out of his mouth._

_“No, it’s not. Leave here with me. Come home. We miss you.”_

_The wound in his chest burned as it tore open a little farther. He wanted to go home. More than anything, he wanted to go home. But the dark in him had already grown too strong. Snoke would find him. Snoke always won._

_“I am being torn apart,” he said, voice coming out in a choked whisper. “I want to be free of this pain. I know what I have to do, but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.”_

_ **Please, father. Leave me. Leave now.** _

_“Will you help me?”_

_He cursed himself. Why was he such a coward? Why couldn’t he resist Snoke?_

_“Yes. Anything.”_

_ **No, father. No, no, no.** _

_The word turned into a chant, running in a long stream through his head until the individual words blurred. His helmet clanked on the walkway as it dropped from his trembling fingers. He gripped the lightsaber at his belt and unsheathed it, holding it out to his father. Han glanced at him, and Kylo almost thought he saw realization in those familiar eyes. Those eyes he had loved as a child and still loved now. Han gripped the hilt of the saber in a white knuckled hand._

_ **Why must this be the test. Why must I do this?** _

_Memories of long days of torture poured into him. He couldn’t face that again. His mouth had gone dry and his legs shook beneath him. It was all he could do to hold himself upright. The light disappeared from the sky and darkness descended. It mirrored the despair settling over him. His thumb crept toward the activation switch._

_ **Run. This is your last chance. Turn and run. I’m so sorry.** _

_Han Solo didn’t move._

_Kylo was looking his father in his eyes when he gave the saber a quick twist and depressed the button. He saw the instant the blade drove home. His father’s eyes widened and his mouth came open in a last gasp of air. _

_ **I’m so sorry. So sorry.** _

_Chewie’s roar and an agonized wail echoed around him, but he could only look at his father. He drove his weight against the blade. A clean stroke. A quick death. Han would not have to suffer for more than a few seconds. _

_“Thank you,” he whispered._

_ **Father.** _

_He pulled the saber free and was startled by the hand that reached up to stroke his cheek. The rough calluses against his skin pulled up memories of his father tucking him into bed, stroking his hair back from his forehead as he promised another story tomorrow._

_ **No more tomorrows now.** _

_Han didn’t look away as he slipped to the side and tumbled out into empty air, plummeting down. _

_ **I’m so sorry.** _

_Kylo felt his heart tear in two. The pain nearly sent him to his knees._

Rey gasped and pulled her hands away, breaking free of the memory. Kylo’s pain still clung to her and she felt sick to her stomach. She shook her head, hard, trying to dislodge the remnants of what she’d seen.

“Why did you show me that?”

“I didn’t mean to,” he said, looking as shaken as she felt.

She sensed that he spoke truth.

He pulled away from her, drawing back behind the walls of his mind. They sat in a dead silence, staring at one another until Rey let out a breath in a slow hiss and stretched out her arms toward him again.

“Only the memories you need,” she said. “No more.”

This time it was Kylo who hesitated to reach out. 

Rey expected the electric current and so wasn’t surprised when he finally clasped her wrists. She could tell he was holding himself at a distance, careful not to let much more than emotion slip from his mind to hers.

His voice came to her as clearly as if he’d spoken aloud.

“Show me what happened.”

“How?”

“Remember,” he said. “It’ll help keep me from straying into other thoughts.” 

Rey closed her eyes and focused. Pictures began to flash behind her eyes as Kylo sorted through her thoughts. She saw herself reaching toward Luke’s lightsaber, remembering the new and intoxicating music that she heard surrounding it. She saw again the vision she’d received when she’d touched it. She remembered the first time she’d seen Kylo and how she had turned his interrogation back towards him until she could read his thoughts and emotions. 

She remembered the hours of training on Ahch-To and her own experiments with her abilities. She saw the dark cave and the question she’d asked of it. And then their bond was what filled her mind. The few times they’d talked across hundreds and thousands of light years. There was the memory of the throne room battle, when she’d used her growing abilities beside his, and then she saw herself in the training room, swinging her lightsaber like a madwoman. She felt again the pressure in her head and the emptiness in her chest that had driven her into panic, but faintly.

The second he sensed the remembered emotion, Kylo’s presence in her thoughts jerked from a tentative curiosity to concern. 

“What is it?” she asked, her own fear starting to tick upwards.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Rey remembered again, the old emotions drifting through her. Kylo was quiet in her head for a while, but she sensed his careful examination. It seemed like he was going over and over the memory of her training that afternoon, practically scouring it with his inspection. 

“I need you to remember further back.”

“How much further?”

“The throne room,” he said quietly. “When Snoke forced himself into your mind.”

Rey stiffened. That was something she didn’t want to remember. 

“I can’t.”

She startled as Kylo’s fingers laced themselves through hers.

“I know it’s difficult,” he said. “Let me help you.”

Rey didn’t move. Her thoughts stayed fixed on Kylo’s hands- a desperate attempt to keep herself from drifting into the past.

“Rey, please believe me,” he said. “I know.”

With his words, it all rushed back into her mind. The screaming pain in her head, the unbearably large will crushing down on hers. She had panicked, fighting back against it with everything in her. Even the memory was agonizingly painful. 

“So this is why you panicked,” Kylo murmured. “You used the dark side for the first time, but you also sensed my presence in your mind.”

“What?”

“Strong, or in your case new, dark side powers and an intruder in your mind set you off.”

“Why?”

“Because when Snoke tried to pull information from you, you were exposed to intense pain and the strength of his power. Now you associate pain with a foreign presence in your mind that is strong in the dark side.”

Rey shook her head.

“Maybe. But it didn’t feel like he was pulling at my memories,” she said. “It was different than what you did during your interrogation. More like something heavy pushing down on my mind. I started to feel like I was supposed to give up- let myself go or something. It hurt.”

Kylo’s eyes narrowed.

“Let yourself go?” he asked, slowly, as though he wasn’t sure what she meant.

Rey nodded.

“I need you to remember that again,” Kylo said, “in as much detail as you can manage. I need to feel what you felt.”

Rey pulled in a deep breath and steeled herself against the pain of the memory. She plunged into it as into water. 

She sensed again the empty air beneath her as she hung suspended ten feet above the floor. She was helpless and unable to move, bound by the dark side as Snoke began to drill into the walls she thrown up around her mind. A weight seemed to press in at her temples, pain squeezing in a tight band across her forehead. She could hear a low hum, rising and falling and recognized the chill that froze her blood as the dark side.

The pain began to pulse through her whole body and her will began to crumble. A voice was whispering in her mind.

_Give in. Give yourself up. The pain will go away if you let go._

Rey clenched her teeth and threw back her head, a guttural scream leaving her as she pushed back against the crushing weight.

Abruptly, it left. She dropped to the floor, striking so hard the breath left her body. 

“Stop.”

She flinched at Kylo’s voice, but it pulled her away from the memory. She breathed again.

Kylo’s forehead was wrinkled and he looked like he was concentrating.

“I need to see it once more,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Rey grimaced, but allowed him to bring back the memory and scrutinize it. The images seemed farther away the second time, not so terrifying when she shared them. Kylo scrutinized them and kept going, traveling further forward in the memory than he had yet traversed. As it drifted past, she noticed other pictures-memories that she didn’t recognize. 

She saw her own face as though through a mist, terrified, staring up from a kneeling position several inches off the floor, bound by the Force. She saw the tears start in her own eyes and at the same time, she saw Kylo’s determined expression, hand at his side with fingers twitching. Snoke’s voice droned on in her own memory, echoed in the strange one. Kylo’s memory, she realized. Kylo’s memory of the same moments leaking into her mind.

“…and kills his true enemy.”

In the space of that heartbeat, she had been more frightened than she had ever been in her life. She had not removed her eyes from Kylo’s, praying for some miracle. And it had occurred. There was the hiss of a lightsaber igniting, but it was not the blade in his hand. In Kylo’s memory, she saw her lightsaber burst into life, slicing through Snoke. The pale eyes went wide in shock. 

There was a silence in her mind and Rey studied Kylo’s memory. Something about it unsettled her. She was going through the memory for the third time when she spotted it. Just before Kylo twitched his fingers to draw the weapon forward there was a disturbance in the air around Snoke. She eyed it, uncertain, as the wall behind the disturbance warped and bent. It looked almost like the heat shimmers so common on Jakku. It grew and shifted about for a moment, then disappeared as suddenly as it came. 

Without warning, the shrill tone of fear pierced her ears and Kylo’s presence vanished from her mind. His hands jerked from hers and he leaned back in his chair, studying her with a face that was paler than usual. He looked as if he wanted to be sick.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Snoke,” said Kylo, face twisting in anger and fear. “The son of a bantha.”

“What about him?”

Kylo swore.

“He was testing your will,” he said. “Looking for a weakness he could use to get in. I didn’t realize he’d learned how to transfer himself. I should have seen it-“

“Kylo,” Rey ground out through clenched teeth, “What are you talking about?”

Kylo ran his hands over his white face in a gesture that Rey was rapidly realizing was the way he hid his exhaustion.

“It’s a long explanation.”

Rey just stared at him until he started.

“For as long as they’ve existed,” said Kylo, “the Sith have been obsessed with immortality. Snoke wasn’t a Sith, but he was just as consumed with the idea of living forever.”

Rey made a face.

“Yeah, it’s never really appealed to me either,” said Kylo.

“So, I guess they figured out a way to do it?” Rey asked.

“To cut out several hundred years of trial and error, yes. They figured out a way to transfer their consciousness into an object, or another being, even as their old bodies died and were consumed by the dark side.”

Rey shuddered.

“The ritual was supposed to have been lost centuries ago, so it never crossed my mind that Snoke knew how.”

Rey felt the blood drain from her face.

“You think he’s not actually dead then?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out,” Kylo said.

He got to his feet, checked the lightsaber at his belt, and headed for the door. He stopped there and looked back over his shoulder to where she sat, unmoving.

“Are you coming?”

Rey shot to her feet and started after him down the hall. There was no way in Chaos that she was going to stay behind.

“Where are we going?”

“Back to the _Supremacy_,” he said. “We’ll find what we need to know there.”


End file.
